The latest battle report on the US War on Women comes from Georgia, where a bill to force women to carry dead babies to term (i.e. until they are expelled without medical assistance) has passed the Georgia state house by nearly 2:1 and is now in the state senate. It's clear these legislators believe that every uterus is God's property and that they themselves are God's Legal Department.
Forty years ago, American women nearly achieved Constitutional protection from these sorts of governmental abuses. The Equal Rights Amendment or ERA was passed by Congress in 1972, supported by President Richard Nixon, and came within 3 states of ratification. It was derailed by the religious right in the person of Phyllis Schlafly, who became the first anti-feminist prominent in the media. One of the right wing arguments against the ERA was that it would lead to legalizing homosexual marriages. The insurance industry also opposed it, fearing they would have to pay more for women's health. And of course forced birthers feared it.
Derailing the ERA was the first sign of what came to be called "The Backlash" of "angry white men". With hindsight, this was the beginning of the populist right wing movement, ginned up by Koch-financed AM radio hate jocks such as Rush Limbaugh, that swept Ronald Reagan into power at the end of the decade.
By the Clinton era of the 90's conventional wisdom was that women no longer needed the ERA because all the battles it had been intended to win had been won piecemeal. But some of us who worked for the ERA in the '70s feared that piecemeal gains can also be reversed, rolled back, and turned into piecemeal losses. That is what we are seeing now in the War on Women.
And that is why we still need the ERA:
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.